What are the world's top 10 favorite animal species?

The votes are in!

ARKive is a project of Wildscreen, a non-profit working globally to promote an appreciation of biodiversity and nature through the power of wildlife imagery.

ARKive's goal is to be a publicly accessible centralized repository that helps raise awareness and educate the public:

Valuable wildlife photographs and videos have been scattered throughout the world in a wide variety of private, commercial and specialist collections, with no centralised collection, restricted public access, limited educational use, and no co-ordinated strategy for its long term preservation.

ARKive was originally created to put that right, gathering together the most inspirational films and photographs of the world's species into one centralised digital library – creating a unique audio-visual record of life on Earth, preserving and maintaining for future generations.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, ARKive asked its users to vote for their favorite species. Over 14,000 votes from 162 countries have been cast, and now the results are in. Interestingly, the #1 spot is not held by one of the better known iconic species like the tiger (#2) or polar bear (#5), but by a small flightless bird found only in New Zealand, the Kakapo (pictured above).